


Apples Bruise Just Like We Do

by jjtaylor



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-17
Updated: 2010-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tonks moves to Boston after the war. Closer to an AU of <a href="http://asylums.insanejournal.com/hp_dungeons">The Dungeons</a> than anything else, but you don't need to know the game to read this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apples Bruise Just Like We Do

Tonks ties the strings of her black apron into a big knot and hangs it on an empty peg next to a line of a dozen other black aprons. Everyone complains about the uniform, but Tonks doesn't mind. They can wear whatever they want at the art shop under their apron, after all, which means she can wear her Converse trainers and her jeans with the knees ripped out, and that makes her happy. Everything about working at the shop makes her happy, or that's what she says at least. Sometimes it's true.

Except that they sell a line of products called Phoenix and sometimes when she picks up one of the brushes or ink bottles it makes her shiver. She tells Melanie, who always looks concerned whenever Tonks does something odd like this, like startles at someone's name or jumps when someone knocks over a pile of boxes that crash to the floor, that it's just that the name has a bad association for her. Melanie asks her if she had a nasty time when she was in Arizona and Tonks says, something like that, yeah.

She told them she was a painter in the interview. She was taking a year off, getting away from home. Sometimes she goes out for drinks with Melanie and Alex-with-glasses and Alex-without-glasses and Jodie and the other disgruntled with life struggling artists there, and makes up stories about what she did before she moved here. She buys paints and canvases she never uses and they pile up under her bed.

On her way out, she waves at Melanie, gives her a cheery smile, and walks to the train. She's been in Boston four months. Harry's been dead four months and five days.

The war's over, and she's lost her parents, three ex-girlfriends and one ex-boyfriend, 57 classmates, exactly one-half her secret organization, and her best friend.

She stayed just long enough for his funeral, whispered to his gravestone that she'd miss him and then Apparated across the ocean to a new city. It was much easier to mourn him here, alone, where everyone wasn't mourning him, where every issue of every newspaper wasn't devoted to memorializing all of their losses and speculating about Harry's last thoughts as he died to save them all.

She meant to change her name. She was all ready to be Nora, or Heather, or Amanda, but before she even knew it, she was shaking someone's hand and introducing herself as Tonks. They liked it. Thought it was very British. They also liked her pink hair.

No one really thinks it's strange that she has a new hair color every week. Some of the customers ask her where she gets it done. She tells them she does it herself and they ask if she was a hair stylist before she moved her and she laughs and says sort of, sure. She is amazed, most days, at what people will believe, but she's also extremely grateful at what it lets her get away with.

She has a studio, and everyone is endlessly charmed when she calls it a flat. She could afford someplace bigger, but not on an art store salary and so it's mostly to keep up appearances. She doesn't need room anymore for Harry to crash on her floor when he's having nightmares or relationship troubles, so in the end, the small space suits her better anyway.

She and Harry had always talked about visiting America after the war, once he was finally feel free of obligations, and Tonks had come so close to just spiriting him away one night in the middle of an Order meeting when she'd noticed he'd started to get dark circles under his eyes, but they'd both had to stay, and fight, and maybe that's why this was the first place she thought to run to, the city she'd heard had something called New England charm. She'd always liked the sound of New England. Home, but new.

It starts to snow just as Tonks is getting off the train, and instead of going straight home she wraps her Ravenclaw scarf tighter around her neck and starts to walk. There's no one on the streets, and though the emptiness scares her, reminds her all too much of captivity and Grimmauld Place and her parents' too quiet house the day she found them, the snow seems to erase it all.

She tries to think about what Harry would want her to have done, if he would have wanted her to stay and clean up the mess of England, to track down the Death Eaters left, to go on a date, to find a way to have a normal life. But she couldn't find an answer, because the truth is that Harry would have just walked by her side through the snow, wiped his glasses on the end of her scarf, sung Van Morrison songs off key in the dark, and asked her when they were going to go inside.

She watches the snow fall, flakes winding their way down from the blackness and landing in her hair and melting on her face, and she misses Harry so much it feels like her ribs are breaking, slowly, one by one.

She finally turns back toward her flat, where, inside, she makes a cup of tea and watches the snow piling up against her window on the iron railings of the fire escape. She lifts an apple from the bowl and is about to slice it and have it with very American peanut butter when she notices it has a huge bruise. She puts it back and takes out another; it's bruised, too. She picks up five apples in succession; all of the apples in the bowl are bruised where they've rested against each other. She presses against the brown flesh. It's soft and tender and feels a little too much like she's pressing against a bruise on her own skin.

She reaches for the phone and dials home.

"'Bout time you called me." Moody's rich voice is on the other end of the line and it feels like he's right there next to her.

"Couldn't be sure you'd remember where you put the phone." She's terribly glad he answered right away and that he sounds like his reassuringly grumpy self.

"I remember where I put everything," Moody grumbles. "No floos nearby?"

"Nah."

"Not worth the effort to find one?"

Oh course, he's right. "Not when the only person I'd want to talk to keeps a phone in his kitchen cupboard."

Moody laughs, and then says, gently, "Are you coming back, Tonks?"

"Not yet," Tonks says, too quickly. "You can come and visit, though."

"Oh can I?" Moody crows. "Well then. You can expect me tomorrow. Have to have the chance to pack and all."

"And what are you going to pack, old man?" Her heart has started to race, and she's not entirely sure why. She thinks it must be the idea of Moody knocking at her door tomorrow. Surely, he'd come first thing in the morning, probably Apparating directly in the middle of the Ministry's morning traffic.

"I've a pair of Muggle trousers to dig up, you know. Help me blend in."

"I thought you remembered where everything was," Tonks teases. "I've missed you, Moody." It's out of her mouth before she can think twice.

"I've missed you, too," he says. "More than you know." And then he hangs up immediately, before she can say anything else.

Tonks stands there, still holding the phone to her ear, her forehead against the cold windowpane. The snow is falling even faster, so that all she sees are streaks of white and the cars in the lot outside her building are becoming powdery domes. She watches until the rumbling sound of the snow plow passing down her street startles her out of her stupor.

She picks back up one of the apples and bites out the bruise, chews quickly, and swallows the bitter brown flesh. The strange taste lingers in her mouth, but the rest of the apple is perfectly sweet.


End file.
